


catch me if you can

by renquise



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Thieves, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 10:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10569420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: Wonshik took the calling card that Hongbin handed to him. Plain, thick cardstock, and printed in the middle, in tasteful lettering:N-night. With a little stick figure.Or, the one where Hakyeon is a master thief and Wonshik is trying to catch him.





	

“A gold-plated mammoth skeleton.”

Hongbin was one of the most persistent, determined art theft investigators that Wonshik had ever worked with. In all of Wonshik’s time with him, he had never sounded this baffled. 

And yet, there they were in the penthouse apartment of a rich businessman’s son who was currently bemoaning the loss of his tacky gold-plated mammoth skeleton to Jaehwan and Taekwoon. Taekwoon was looking more and more mutinous by the second.

“They left a calling card, too. Who do they think they are?” Hongbin sounded at once impressed and offended. 

“Can I?” 

Wonshik took the card that Hongbin handed to him. Plain, thick cardstock, and printed in the middle, in tasteful lettering: _N-night_. With a little stick figure. Wonshik raised his eyebrows. 

Wonshik passed his hand through his hair. “Okay. Okay, we have no idea how they got the skeleton out of here, but there’s only a few places that they could be storing it right now, before they move it, right?”

Hongbin blinked at him and then grinned, waving Taekwoon and Jaehwan over in a burst of energy. Taekwoon looked relieved, shrugging off the businessman’s son continued whining about insurance values.

They followed the lead to a storage container in the outskirts of Incheon. The night guard opened the door for them, and there, they found—an empty container. Wonshik stood in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips. 

Or—not quite empty. Wonshik turned around in the container and there, tucked into the back of the door: another card.

 _Nice try! Had me sweating there for about two seconds. N-night_ , it said in cheerful, hastily scribbled handwriting. 

Hongbin sighed and patted his shoulder. “We were close.”

“Guy has style,” Jaehwan said begrudgingly. 

—

The next time they met, Wonshik had three stolen paintings on his hands. Or, well, not on his hands. That wouldn’t be that unusual, except for the fact that they should have been protected by an elaborate security system, and they were large enough to take up an entire wall. Usually, Wonshik’s cases dealt with art that was easy to transport and to fence, and these were neither. 

And this time, there was a note carefully tucked into one of the empty frames.

 _Hello, Investigator Kim Wonshik_ , it said.

“How did he know you’d be the one investigating this case?” Hongbin said, looking over his shoulder. 

“Dunno. Common last name, so maybe it was just a lucky guess.”

“‘Wonshik’ is pretty specific, though,” Hongbin said, grinning.

When Wonshik flipped the card over, there was a neat floor diagram with helpful notes.

_You might be wondering how I did this one. I made you a diagram. These are the paintings. Well. Where the paintings used to be!_

And a little stick figure tracing a path through the floorplans:

_This is me. It’s not a very good likeness! I’m very handsome._

And a cute, neat rendering of a security system diagram:

_This is the C-3290s model of this security system, which has a design flaw in the circuitry if it was manufactured between 2011-12, which can be pretty easily short-circuited. They really should fix that, shouldn’t they?_

And a little droopy-eyed stick figure with a detective hat scratching his head over to the side. Okay. So maybe it wasn’t a lucky guess.

_This is you! You’re very handsome too, don’t worry. Nice legs._

“That’s adorable,” Jaehwan said, looking over his other shoulder. “He thinks you’re haaaaaandsome.”

“It’s going into evidence,” Wonshik said firmly, and jammed his cap on his head so that no one could see his ears burning.

Taekwoon raised his eyebrows at him and didn’t say anything, which meant that it was going to be office gossip before the day was through. 

—

By now, Wonshik wasn't sure if this thief was deliberately trying to fuck with him. He probably shouldn't feel this flattered about it.

“They stole an entire room-sized mobile and left you a candle,” Hongbin said, goggle-eyed. “The card says it’s homemade. I can't believe we have an art thief who might be a middle-aged person with a pinterest page and three cats. Who are they, seriously?” 

“The mobile weighs at least a couple hundred kilos. He has to have an accomplice, or maybe an entire crew,” Wonshik said, desperately clinging on to something that was a normal and professional conversation. 

“A _candle_.” Hongbin said.

Wonshik dusted the candle for fingerprints, tried to find anything caught in the wax, spent an entire afternoon trawling through etsy, tried to identify the scent, and reluctantly gave up a sample to forensics to try and trace the materials. Nothing doing. All high-quality materials, but nothing unique enough to be traceable.

He kept it on his desk with the evidence tag around it. It smelled really nice. Something citrusy, maybe some lemongrass. 

—

There was definitely a pattern. After a few months, Wonshik was pretty sure that he could spot an N job from a mile away: clever and precise, and almost performative, like a stage magician daring them to figure out the trick. The art was usually pretty tasteful stuff, outside of that first job. A delicate vase-shaped sculpture of pressed flowers. Three sets of horse’s armour. A ghostly house sculpture made of translucent fabric. And always, always, the same calling card.

The first time that Wonshik saw his thief—” _Your_ thief?” Jaehwan said gleefully—was on grainy security camera footage. There was nothing on all the cameras, because the thief apparently knew their camera angles, until—

“I can’t believe they’re actually wearing a catsuit,” Hongbin said. 

The figure did a graceful handspring over the invisible laser grid, then waved at the camera before the footage cut out.

“I don’t know, they’re kind of pulling it off,” Jaehwan said. “Okay, so for a description, we have: tall, looks good in a catsuit. Flexible. Probably pretty strong. Good job, team.”

“Are you _blushing_?” Hongbin said, squinting at Wonshik. “It’s so pixelated that you can barely tell it’s a catsuit.”

“No! I mean. No.”

“Cool. Now we know that investigator Kim Wonshik can provide a positive id of our perp based on a pixelated butt. It’ll stand up in court, don’t worry.” Jaehwan waggled his eyebrows in order to completely obliterate any doubt about whether this was an innuendo. Taekwoon nodded sagely, jotting something down in the case file.

Wonshik tried not to die and melt into the floor, because that would definitely make his backlog of cases even worse.

—

The backlog kept getting worse, though. This was the fifth time this week he had pulled a late night. It was all boring cases, though. Lots of paperwork and no mammoth skeletons. 

He startled when when Hongbin shook him awake at his desk. There were approximately three paragraphs of keysmashing in the case file document when he lifted his face off his keyboard. 

“Hey, did you order takeout?” Hongbin said. 

“Nope,” Wonshik said. It smelled really good, though. He hadn’t realized that he hadn’t eaten yet.

“Well, someone ordered in for the entire office, and it wasn’t any of us.”

Taekwoon was already halfway through a box of chicken, as if he hadn’t already eaten two sandwiches from the office fridge that evening, despite notes taped on them that said, “DON’T EAT THIS THAT MEANS YOU JUNG TAEKWOON.” 

Taekwoon handed him the receipt for the chicken. He raised his eyebrows at Wonshik, still chewing, and gestured for him to turn the receipt over. There was something written on the back, in familiar neat writing:

_You really should get some sleep and eat more. I won’t pull any jobs for a few weeks, so take a break, okay? Eat well. N-night._

Wonshik couldn’t tell if it was kind of unsettling or thoughtful that his thief was concerned with his sleeping habits. Either way, Wonshik was kind of charmed by N’s presumption that he was Wonshik's only case, or even the most important and pressing one. It wasn't a priority, to be honest. No one hurt outside of rich collectors who collected insurance payments, no whispers of artworks being traded through gang ties as payment for darker things—it was nice, almost. Just a really talented thief.

“I think we might be getting bribed,” Jaehwan said thoughtfully around a mouthful of chicken. “I’m cool with it.”

—

At first, Wonshik didn’t think this job was N. The stolen artwork was something dull but portable and expensive, and not at all in N’s taste for jobs, and the path of entry and exit through the building was obvious. A smash-and-grab job, almost. But it was the same figure on the split second of video tape that Wonshik managed to see before the footage cut out.

“We almost got them,” the guard said, his jaw tight. “They were limping, but they had an accomplice who helped them with the getaway.” 

Wonshik felt a rush of relief, which is definitely not the response he was supposed to have. It might have shown on his face, because Taekwoon looked over at him and patted him on the back.

“They got away,” Taekwoon said simply.

“Yeah.” He stood and stared at the gutted security system, at the wires hastily twisted together, until Jaehwan put his arm around his shoulders and drew him away.

That night, he received an email from a throwaway address. 

_Hello there,_

_It’s been awhile, hasn't it? I missed you. Sorry to cause you trouble—I didn't really want to do this one, but it was a favour for an old acquaintance._

_I’m a little tired. I landed a little wrong on my ankle getting away from this one. It was very undignified and I’m glad that I cut the cameras out so that you can’t see it._

_My apprentice is telling me that I’m growing old, and that I should quit while my creaky bones are still whole. Maybe I should, while i’m still ahead of you and your boys. Settle down. THat might be nice. I could get a cat. i have my apprentice, but he is very large and willful these days, and he wouldd probably sigh a lot if i asked him to cudd;e. youseem like you would be very good at cuddling._

_ii think my appretntice might havegiven me teh good painkillers. hes a good kid and ihave convinced him too be a pilllooww bcause iam v v convincing. this bedd is v soft. nnnnnnnn-night xxxxx_

_PS sorry i had a candle forrrr you but i think i leffit ina venttt somewheres_

There weren’t any clues about N's whereabouts—a cursory trace gave him a location in the Maldives, which was definitely a false trail. Even when high on painkillers, N was meticulous. 

It was weird to think that somewhere, maybe even nearby, N was exhausted and hurting and a little lonely. It made them real, somehow. Not just a shadow that Wonshik was chasing.

Wonshik pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he could see bursts of light behind his eyes, and bent over another case file. 

Before he could chicken out, he turned back to his computer and wrote back to the address: _Hey, I hope you feel better soon._ He received a notification that the email had bounced back. 

—

It was quiet, for a few months. Weirdly quiet. 

“Shouldn’t this be in evidence?” Hongbin said when he found Wonshik flipping N’s last card between his fingers. It was half-hearted, though.

“I’m just going through the case file,” Wonshik said. “It’s quiet, so they wanted us to look at older cases, right?”

“Oh my god, you’re pining,” Hongbin said. 

Jaehwan turned his head slowly, his eyes wide and gleeful, and Taekwoon popped his head up from his cubicle, and Wonshik didn’t hear the end of it for weeks.

A month later, Wonshik received an anonymous package with a key and the address of a storage facility in a small industrial district near Busan. When they find the container, theyalso find two dozen artworks in a climate-controlled storage space, with a meticulous inventory and handling instructions. And a golden mammoth skeleton, and a candle, and a note.

 _Goodbye, Wonshik,_ the note said. _I had a really nice time with you. Don't worry, you won't see any more of me. (Though I can’t promise the same for my apprentice, because he is a very promising young man.) Be safe and get some proper sleep from time to time, won’t you? Promise! N-night._

Wonshik turned the card over, and then over again, but there was nothing more. He brought the card up to his nose, the fine cardstock brushing his lips. A lingering citrus-and-lemongrass scent. It was already fading.

“Well, that was easy,” Jaehwan said. “Go team.”

—

A lot could change over the course of two years. 

Wonshik burned out, quit, and decided that he wanted to do music instead, because he was never good at choosing reasonable careers, as Hongbin pointed out fondly. He got himself a puppy. He saw his sister and his family almost every week, now. Sometimes, just sometimes, he was tempted to ask Hongbin whether there was any sign of that apprentice N had mentioned, but Hongbin probably wouldn't be able to tell him about open cases, anyway.

And then, Hongbin came over for pizza and gaming one night and said that they needed an outside eye on a case. 

“You don't have to—we could use your help, though. We're bringing in a security consultant, too,” Hongbin said as he put the pizza boxes down in Wonshik’s studio and knelt to play with his puppy's tiny paws. The way he offered it was careful and offhand, making it clear that Wonshik could say no if he wanted to. Wonshik almost tripped over himself saying yes.

It was nice, being back in the office. Jaehwan grinned and grinned at him, and Taekwoon kept on coming up beside him to lean his chin on his shoulder as they bent over the case file.

The new security consultant was pretty, with dark eyes and a tall, lithe figure.

“Cha Hakyeon,” he said, shaking Wonshik’s hand firmly and flashing him a blinding smile. 

“Nice to meet you,” Wonshik stuttered. 

Hongbin tapped Wonshik’s shoulder, gesturing to something in the corner of their white board covered in notes and diagrams. When Wonshik looked back, he caught Cha Hakyeon watching him, his eyes going wide before darting away. 

Cha Hakyeon was really, really good at what he did. Meticulous and clever. By the end of the day, Hongbin was grinning his face off, practically bouncing with the prospect of breaking a case wide open. 

“Okay, drinks, drinks!” Hongbin said, patting Wonshik’s back excitedly. “For a job well done.”

Hakyeon looked over at him, his eyes bright and interested. Over the course of the day, he had stripped off his suit jacket and rolled his sleeves to the elbow, but one of them now hung loosely around his wrist. His fingers were poised on the plans spread on the conference table, over a spot where he and Wonshik had spent half an hour arguing about the method of entry. “Definitely. You’re good at this, Kim Wonshik. Why did you stop?”

Wonshik shrugged, ducking his head, a pleased glow in his chest. “Wanted to do something else. Sometimes you need a change, right?”

Hakyeon laughed. He drew back, pushing his sleeve back up in a gesture that seemed almost a nervous habit. “True.” 

—

It took him longer than expected to come back after drinks. Jaehwan had looped him into another round of karaoke, and Wonshik had been unable to resist. At the door of his apartment, Wonshik patted at his pockets for his keys. 

He found his keys, and then, his wallet in an inside pocket of his jacket that he usually didn't use. And inside his wallet, a card. 

And on the card, a phone number, neat and careful, and a little stick figure. Citrus and lemongrass. 

Wonshik opened the door and kicked off his shoes, and sat down against the closed door. His puppy skittered across the flooring and wriggled into his lap. The card sat in front of him, a silent question, and he felt very, very sober.

Wonshik grabbed his phone and typed out a message. He deleted it, typed out another. Then just dialed the number. This was probably a bad idea. He wasn't even sure what he was going to say. 

The line rang, once, twice, and then stopped. There was the sound of breathing over the line, a shift of clothing, and the click of someone's throat as they swallowed. 

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” The voice was steady, friendly, but there was a tight line of nervousness underneath. 

Wonshik laughed, a little helplessly. 

“I never got the chance to catch you,” he said. 

And then considered launching himself out the window for saying something so cheesy that he could feel Hongbin cringing all the way from the other side of the city. 

“I mean. Wait. Fuck. Don’t hang up.”

A pause, then a laugh over the line. “Well, you wouldn't have, because I’m very good. Besides, all the evidence you had was circumstantial.” A pause. “I could give you another chance, though, investigator.”

“Really?” 

“Well, not really. I guess you aren’t a investigator anymore, and I’m not very hard to catch, these days. I like having an apartment that I can live in without worrying if someone is on my trail. I got some new curtains this week. They’re really nice.”

He was babbling a little, and it was really cute. 

“I bet. No more artworks to go with them, though?” 

“No, not anymore. Didn’t go with the decor,” he said easily. Another deep breath, like someone bracing themselves before a dive. “Maybe you should come over and see.”

Wonshik’s mouth went dry. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” 

Wonshik thought of Cha Hakyeon leaning close to him in the bar, brushing his fingers along his chest in a way that could have been an accident, if they hadn’t lingered for a moment on his collarbone. Thought of his hands, unusually strong and callused, of his gymnast’s poise.

“Will you tell me how you did that job with the skeleton?” 

Another laugh, surprised and pleased and a little embarrassed. “I could tell you a story I heard about how someone I knew did a very clever, well-executed job of stealing a very large, very tacky golden mammoth skeleton to get some attention.”

Wonshik grinned.

—

“Wait. Wait. Back up. Did you seriously just say that I stole your breath away?”

“What? No. Definitely not.”

Wonshik flushed and leaned in again, burying his hands in Cha Hakyeon’s fine, mussed hair, and caught his delighted laugh with his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha i feel like everything i write these days is feeling clumsy and uninspired, but please accept this bit of cheesy nonsense based on an amazing idea fluffsik mentioned on tumblr ages ago? I’m not sure i did it justice, but I loved the idea too much to let it go. \o/

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [run with me (catch me if you can)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12005586) by [enpleurs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enpleurs/pseuds/enpleurs)




End file.
